"Sprightly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mackenzie's nature. Sir John Colborne was replaced in the government of the province by one of the most incapable governors ever chosen by the colonial office, Sir Francis Bond Head. He had been chiefly known in England as a sprightly writer of travels, and had had no political experience except such as could be gathered in the discharge of the duties of a poor-law commissioner in Wales. His first official act was an indiscretion. He communicated ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... The sprightly companion of princesses was begging her bread. Her wit and beauty had disappeared, the once bright eyes were sharp, the once blooming cheeks ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... caudle into small silver tumblers, and gave them to us. "The Bequest of a Friend" was engraved on them. Her fingers were like ice, and her head shook with fatigue; but her voice was sprightly and her smile bright. Ann ate a good deal of sponge cake, and omitted the caudle, but I drank mine to the memory of the donor of ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... song fourteen times, Buddy ate a hearty breakfast. Feeling as sprightly as he did, he found his appetite unusually keen. And when at last he had finished his meal he went straight off to make calls ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... extraordinary vulgarity with the flattest and most insipid dulness—not a common dulness, but a dulness redolent of low slang and dirty tap-rooms. The authors seem to plume themselves on their marvellous success in reaching Monte Carlo, which, with their usual sprightly facetiousness, they call "Charley's Mount." They are good enough to tell such of the travelling public as may want to get there, that the train leaving Victoria at 8.40 A.M. reaches Dover at 10.35. Stupendous! These two greenhorns took their snack on board the steamer (Ugh!), instead of waiting until ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... sprightly lines, suggests that Punch should appear daily. This would certainly not be a whit more strange than to issue a T. P.'s Weekly Christmas Number as is ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... and sharable. Disinterested, because they consist so largely in delighted contemplation merely. Women on the stage, said Coquelin, should afford to the spectator "a theatrical pleasure only, and not the pleasure of a lover." Compare with this the sprightly ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... she was horrid to him," Billy reflected, "although she was a very sprightly looking lady love. He showed me her picture in the back of his watch.... ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... faculty, rich, smooth, delicate, with a slightly aromatic after-taste that the dallying bees bring to the vine-blossoms from the blossoms of the wild-thyme. Anciently it filled the cups over which chirped the sprightly Popes of Avignon; and in later times, only forty years back, it was the drink of the young Felibrien poets—Mistral, Roumanille, Aubanel, Mathieu and the rest—while they tuned and set a-going their lyres. But it is ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... I want!' exclaimed Gudbrand. 'I'd far rather have that gay, sprightly creature than this huge, stupid brute.' Whereupon, without an instant's hesitation, he exchanged the hog ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... such divine eyes, and she is commanding him now. I fear I may as well give up. Oh!' For at that moment Ericson, at a word from Helena, who saw that the Duchess was gazing at them, suddenly looked up and caught the beaming eyes of the pretty and sprightly young American woman who had become the wife of a ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... thy ways for a sprightly crack!" said the citizen, preparing to go his. "I know them now, for my cousin Parker hath a venture in the Mere Honour, and that is the great ship the Queen hath lent Sir John, his other ships being the Marigold, the Cygnet, and the Star, and they're all a-lying above Greenwich, ready ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... with all its shady forests! Welcome the thatched cottage and the little garden filled with the fruits of our own fondly mingled toils! Methinks, my love, I already see that distant sun rising with gladsome beams on our dew-spangled flowers. I hear the wild wood-birds pouring their sprightly carols on the sweet-scented morning. My heart leaps with joy to their songs. Then, O my husband! if we must go, let us go without a sigh. God can order it for our good. And, on my account, you shall cast no ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... Louison and Captain Anstruther lingered au cabinet particulier, over their Chablis and Ostend oysters, the recouped gambler extended his store of mental acquirement, by tender converse with the two sprightly belles of the Windy City. In fact, the whistle of the steamer was heard long before Alan Hawke could extricate himself from the clinging tentacles of the audacious beauties. He was somewhat repaid for his social exertions, however, as he sped back to keep his tryst at Geneva, ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... audience. Whenever she commented on existing conditions or on general principles, individual men and women were sure to rush into the fray, making a personal application and waxing highly indignant. The Dayton Herald said of her evening address: "She made a clear, logical and lawyerlike argument, in sprightly language, that women being persons are citizens, and as citizens, voters. We think that none who examine her authorities and line of discussion can avoid her conclusions, and we are certain that many of the ablest jurists of the land have the honor (logically and legally) ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... closed the door after them. With a wondering glance, Carmen looked about her. In the room at her right she caught a glimpse of women—beautiful, they seemed to her—clad in loose, low-cut, gaily colored gowns. There were men there, too; and some one sat at a piano playing sprightly music. She had seen pianos like that in Cartagena, and on the boat, and they had seemed to her things bewitched. In the room at the end of the hall men and women were dancing on a floor that seemed of polished glass. Loud talk, laughter, and singing floated ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... ward; and the philosophic observers, who on all sides think they descry evidence of the corruption of the country by the city, would have glibly explained to the Hon. Seneca Bowers the causes of his inefficiency. He had come to rely more and more on his sprightly deputy, till now, virtual county leader and his party's candidate, Shelby, double-weighted, prepared to wage the battle ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... worries! I wish he wasn't coming. We are very peaceful and snug here. And mother's face doesn't looked harassed as it often did when we were in town. I do wish Loftus wasn't coming to upset everything. It was he turned us away from our nice, sprightly, jolly London, and now, surely he need not follow us into the country. Yes, Catherine, what words of wisdom or reproof are going to drop ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... rears His honey-dropping tops, ploughed by her breath, Which there reciprocally laboreth. In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire, Founded to th' name of great Apollo's lyre; Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes Of sweet-lipp'd angel imps, that swill their throats In cream of morning Helicon; and then Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men, To woo them from their beds, still murmuring That men can sleep while ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... supply of sprightly humour. Her Mad Month (HUTCHINSON) is funny without being flippant, and although the heroine is very naughty she is never naughty enough to shock her creator's unhyphened namesake. Perhaps Charmian's exploits in escaping from a severe grandmother, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... a delightful book for boys and girls, especially for those who love good pictures and odd and sprightly stories with something in them besides the fun and sparkle. Mr. J. Wells Champney has put a picture or a sketch wherever there was a chance, and Mrs. Lizzie W. Champney has made the stories very bright, sweet and interesting. ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... gloomy memories of past joys and disillusions, he contrived to make himself very agreeable, by-and-by, at dinner, and in the drawing-room after dinner, and the evening was altogether gay and sprightly. Maulevrier was in high spirits, full of his Parisian experiences, and talking slang as glibly as a student of the Quartier Latin. He would talk nothing but French, protesting that he had almost forgotten ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... chaste; and if any one of them happen to have a child before marriage, her fortune is spoiled. They are very sprightly and good humoured, and the women generally handsome. Their manner of handling infants is very rough: as soon as the child is born, they plunge it over head and ears in cold water, and they bind it naked to a board, making a hole ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... hied me to the ocean-side; Its waves rolled bright and high; Upon its waters, spreading wide, I gazed with beaming eye. At last, at last, I said, is found A charm to banish pain,— Here, where the sprightly billows bound ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... of Italian literature to the author of the Aristodemus—a man of genius scarcely inferior to his own, and a still more devoted disciple of the great Florentine. It must be acknowledged that this eminent writer has sometimes pushed too far his idolatry of Dante. To borrow a sprightly illustration from Sir John Denham, he has not only imitated his garb, but borrowed his clothes. He often quotes his phrases; and he has, not very judiciously as it appears to me, imitated his versification. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... English apple. Wide branching like the oak, and its large ridgy fruit, in late fall or early winter, is one of my favorites. Or the thick and more pendent top of the belleflower, with its equally rich, sprightly uncloying fruit. ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... third was a chorus girl: on the whole, the best of the bunch. Her father was a coachman, and she had ten brothers and sisters, most of them doing well in service. And she was succeeded—if I have the order correct- -by the ex-wife of a solicitor, a sprightly lady; according to her own account the victim of complicated injustice. I daresay there were others, if I took the time to think; but not one of them can I remember without returning thanks to Providence for having lost her. What is one to do? There are days in springtime when a young ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... To all the under world the Loves and Fights Of gods, and such men neere 'em. Palamon Is but his foyle, to him a meere dull shadow: Hee's swarth and meagre, of an eye as heavy As if he had lost his mother; a still temper, No stirring in him, no alacrity, Of all this sprightly sharpenes not a smile; Yet these that we count errours may become him: Narcissus was a sad Boy, but a heavenly:— Oh who can finde the bent of womans fancy? I am a Foole, my reason is lost in me; I have no choice, and I have ly'd ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... in a tower under lock and key, so dangerous a town is Coimbra! But we set our wits to work to catch a sight of the beautiful recluses. By means of a nosegay tied to the end of a long stick we drew two sprightly faces, well worthy their reputation, to the window, and so we made acquaintance. Then we were fetched to go over the university, the honours of which were done us by the "grand master" in a blue and gold ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... after his departure. When the festoons were all put up as tastily as they might be, the stupendous collection was uncovered, and there were displayed, on a raised platform some two feet from the floor, running round the room and parted from the rude public by a crimson rope breast high, divers sprightly effigies of celebrated characters, singly and in groups, clad in glittering dresses of various climes and times, and standing more or less unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very wide open, and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... which I have enumerated. But she had been willing to join none of them, although invitations to do so were by no means lacking. I cannot tell you her reason. Still, I can tell you this. When these societies were much spoken of in her presence, her very sprightly countenance became more sprightly, and she added her words of praise or respect to the general chorus. But when she received an invitation to join one of these bodies, her countenance, as she read the missive, would assume an expression which was known to her friends as ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... their own person, and go about on Sundays and weekdays unwashed and in their working attire. Abe had more respect for himself, and was always looked upon among his friends as a dandy. I have heard old people say he was a proud young man, and withal of a very sprightly appearance. ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... Venus hates this cold disdain;— Cease then its rigors to maintain, That sprightly joys impede, Lest the strain'd cord, with which you bind The freedom of my amorous ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... heartily rejoiced to take an American newspaper in my hand again. There were the clear open face of the plain-spoken Tribune, the sprightly columns of the Times, and the more dignified columns of the Washington journals. There were also many other familiar papers on the table, and they were all touched before I left. It was like a cool spring in the wide desert. For I confess that I love the newspaper, if it only be of ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... her won and grew very tender; he kissed her hands many times, called her his dear heart, became, in a word, the clumsy gallant he claimed to be. All this too she endured: she began to gabble at random, sprightly as a minion, with all the shifts of a girl in a strait place ready at command. Her fear was double now: she must learn the trend of the singer and his horse, and prevent Galors from hearing either. This ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... federal courts owned estates in the lower South which yielded incomes ofttimes greater than their official salaries. The very flower and beauty of the land were Southern gentlemen like Robert E. Lee and Wade Hampton, or ladies like the sprightly Mrs. Chestnut or ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... great urn-like capital and base, and shaped midway, like a gigantic lance-handle. Its curtains were of thick and faded tapestry. I was always a lover of such antiquities, but I confess at that moment I would have vastly preferred a sprightly modern chintz and a trumpery little French bed in a corner of the Brandon Arms. There was a great lowering press of oak, and some shelves, with withered green and gold leather borders. All the furniture belonged ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... One sprightly form this story took, which had been whispered in New York and then in Liverpool, was that a certain young lady (identity unknown) had talked with a soldier (identity unknown) in the Grand Central Station ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... no drawback, they feel a perpetual disposition to cheerfulness and to mirth. This disposition seems to be universal in them. It seems too to be felt by us all; that is, the spring, enjoyed by youth, seems to operate as spring to maturer age. The sprightly and smiling looks of children, their shrill, lively, and cheerful voices, their varied and exhilarating sports, all these are interwoven with the other objects of our senses, and have an imperceptible, though an undoubted influence, in adding to the cheerfulness of our minds. Take away the beautiful ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... reflecting that a Skye terrier (though she had never seen one) was a more distinguished kind of pet than a black cat. A black cat was—well, bourgeois (the last rhyming with "boys"). Airy fairy Lilian's pet was a Skye. It was named Fifine, and was very frisky. Lilian, as she sat exchanging sprightly badinage with her many admirers, was wont to sit with her hand perdu beneath the silky Fifine in ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... spacious staircase, at the bottom of which stood two pages, with very grave countenances, whom I recollected afterwards to have formerly been very eminent undertakers, and were in reality the only dismal faces I saw here; for this palace, so awful and tremendous without, is all gay and sprightly within; so that we soon lost all those dismal and gloomy ideas we had contracted in approaching it. Indeed, the still silence maintained among the guards and attendants resembled rather the stately pomp of eastern ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... which was naturally serious and solid, richly furnished, and adorned with all the ornaments of art and science; and those ornaments unaffectedly disposed in the most regular and elegant order. His imagination might have probably been fruitful and sprightly, if his judgment had been less severe; but that severity (delivered in a masculine, clear, succinct stile) contributed to make him so eminent in the didactical manner, that no man with justice can affirm he was ever equalled by any of our nation, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... the bala-khana of a small half-ruined konak outside the village, and shortly after retiring thither the khan's sprightly little retainer brings in tea and fried eggs, besides pomegranates and roses for myself. A new departure makes its appearance in the shape of sugar sprinkled over the eggs. While we are discussing these refreshments ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... found that his mother had asked for him, and running hastily up to change his clothes, he came down and bent over the upright Elizabethan chair. "I have been worrying a good deal about you, my son," she said, with a sprightly gesture in which the piece of purple glass struck the dominant note. "Are you quite sure that you are feeling perfectly well? No palpitations of the heart when you go upstairs? and no particular heaviness after meals? I dreamed about ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... fate of the best stories afloat, and the voice of doubt threatens to rob history of much of its romance. The story of Mentchikof, in its most usual shape, states that Le Fort, general and admiral, was the first to be attracted to the sprightly boy, and that Peter saw him at Le Fort's house, was delighted with him, and made him ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... books talk to the reader with the tender vivacity of youth. But when he began to speak, and as he grew more earnest in conversation, I ceased to be sensible of his age; sometimes, indeed, its dusky shadow darkened through the gleam which his sprightly thoughts diffused about his face, but then another flash of youth came out of his eyes and made an illumination again. I never witnessed such a wonderfully illusive transformation, before or since; and, to this day, trusting only to my recollection, I should find ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... a sprightly little lady in a brilliant purple gown, whose arms were so full of violets and daffodils and purple and yellow ribbons that she looked like an animated flower bed. She smiled and nodded at the sophomore gallery from behind their floral tributes; and the freshmen watched her eagerly and wished ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... in coming out to our little snuggery. His stately establishment in town could not be very home-like. His niece presided over it with great skill, and saw that every wish or taste of his was gratified. She could always entertain him with her sprightly wit, and their social occasions were among the most elegant in the city. He had his club to go to, which furnished every means that ingenuity and lavish resources could contrive to minister to the pleasures ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... compliment of the sex. "My word for it, gentlemen," said Colonel Starbottle, who had been known in Sacramento as a Gentleman of the Old School, "there's some lovely creature at the bottom of this." The gallant Colonel then proceeded to illustrate his theory, by divers sprightly stories, such as Gentlemen of the Old School are in the habit of repeating, but which, from deference to the prejudices of gentlemen of a more recent school, I refrain from transcribing here. But it would appear that even the Colonel's theory was fallacious. The only woman who personally ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... whether Paestum's solemn fane detain, Shrouding his soul with meditation's power; Or at Pozzuoli, to the sprightly strain Of tarantella danced 'neath Tuscan tower, Listening, he while away the evening hour; Or wake the echoes, mournful, lone and deep, Of that sad city, in its dreaming bower By the volcano seized, where mansions keep The likeness ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... tottered towards the carts. I felt disgusted at seeing such unnecessary labour thrust on a man, who never should have left the hospital save to go home. But he had been turned out by the powers which be, and—I was going to say shouldn't, but the R.A.M.C. are all honourable men—when I saw a sprightly, well-fed R.A.M.C. Lance-Corporal walking smartly after him, and in a relieved voice I remarked to the man on my left: "The Corporal is going to carry it for him," to which my neighbour remarked: "He can't, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... cold that would not glow among scenes like these. Rightly did the French call this stream La Belle Riviere, (the beautiful river.) The sprightly Canadian, plying his oar in cadence with the wild notes of the boat-song, could not fail to find his heart enlivened by the beautiful symmetry of the Ohio. Its current is always graceful, and its shores every where romantic. Every thing here ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... visiting your Lady Mother in case of the worst! Slightly grayer your Highness is grown; I too am nothing like so nimble; the great Duke, poor man, is dead!—Prince Eugenio von Savoye, we need not doubt, took snuff, and answered in a sprightly appropriate manner. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... there was something repellent about her too in spite of it. He felt in his heart that it was just a caprice, like her blows and caresses; and then the assumption of youth sat very ill upon this lean middle-aged woman. He would have preferred less lute-playing and sprightly innuendo, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... English people, and how deeply their traditional love for that Church was implanted in their hearts. She, too, had produced her own martyr in Laud, and the aims with which he had inspired her were recovering their hold over the nation. The pages of Pepys's Diary tell us how even his sprightly self-complacency could be moved to enthusiasm by the revival of her dignified ceremonial; and the harmony of her ritual had charms for those who had none of Pepys's musical taste and skill, but might well have a deeper love for its essential ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... self-asserting, but most powerful. The tongue-tied could speak in her presence; the diffident found in her a kindly sympathy which gave confidence; men were peculiarly drawn toward her because she was so essentially womanly without being silly. Although as sprightly and fond of fun as most young girls of her age, they recognized that she was perfectly truthful and loyal to all that men—even bad men—most honor in a woman. They always had a good time in her society, and yet felt the better and purer for it. Life blossomed and grew bright about ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... forehead with brown hair rippling away from it, a thoughtful mouth that matched well with the eyes; an energetic maiden, despite the air of study that somehow surrounded her; you were sure her voice would be sweet, and as sure that it would be sprightly, and you were equally sure that a wealth of strength was hidden behind the sweetness. She was only eighteen, eighteen to-day, but during the last two years she had rapidly developed into womanhood. The master told Miss Prudence this morning that she was trustworthy and guileless, and as ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... to render 'the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man' by fluent octosyllabics was bound to result in incongruity, as in the following passage, where the sombre warning of the Sibyl to Aeneas becomes merely a sprightly ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... me to the different schools, and as we walked up the long Toledo, and threaded our way through the sprightly Neapolitan crowd, he told me of the origin of the schools, and of the peculiar difficulties encountered in their foundation and maintenance. They are no older than the union of Naples with the Kingdom of Italy, when toleration of Protestantism was decreed ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... a lone oasis With one tree, one flower, one spring, One bird of sprightly plumage With throat attuned to sing; One whisper of approval From a voiceless power within; One perfect intuition Of freedom from all sin, Than dwell 'mid throngs and plenty And grovel in the filth That oft adheres to those who claim The boundless ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... [The following sprightly account of life on the school-ship St. Mary's was written for HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE by one of the recent graduates. We give the portraits of three of the four boys who recently graduated with the highest honors. That ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... lovers now appeared, one after the other; she had made each promise to come early. They were all clean-shaven and sprightly, with that peculiar kind of young-man sprightliness which had recently invaded Kensington; they did not seem to mind each other's presence in the least, and wore their ties bunching out at the ends, white waistcoats, and socks with clocks. All had handkerchiefs concealed in their cuffs. They ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the least idea what a boy who was "gone" on you would expect you to be or to do. Bob was a beautiful youth of seventeen, tall, and dark, and slender, with milk-white teeth and Spanish eyes; and Laura's mouth dried up when she thought of perhaps having to be sprightly or ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... wonder that they have the raciness of the soil from which they sprang. Of this uniformity Johnson was sensible. He used to say, that if he had joined a friend or two, who would have been able to intermix papers of a sprightly turn, the collection would have been more miscellaneous, and, by consequence, more agreeable to the generality of readers. This he used to illustrate by repeating two beautiful stanzas from his own ode ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... care," I replied, "but you know since his misfortune, and his conclusion that he cannot do anything but carry on the farm, he seems to have lost his sprightly step and his ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... societe, &c., and, above all, for her letters, most of which are to her daughter, Lady Bute (as Mme. de Sevigne's are to her daughter, Mme. de Grignan), and which are in no respect inferior to those of the French lady in sprightly wit, while in the variety of their subjects they are far superior, as giving the account of Turkish scenery and manners, and also of those of other countries which her husband visited on various diplomatic missions, while Mme. de Sevigne's are ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... when all the town knew about the Englishman and his political prisoner, there came to the Englishman, a certain sprightly Italian Advocate of whom he had some knowledge; and he made this strange proposal. 'Give me a hundred pounds to obtain Carlavero's release. I think I can get him a pardon, with that money. But I cannot tell you what I am going to do with the money, nor must you ever ask me the question ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Lindenwood in company with Edith. Jenny Andrews, with no less a personage than our quondam, roguish friend, Dick Giblet, shop-boy of Mr. Salsify Mumbles' grocery; now Mr. Richard Giblet, of the firm of Edson, Giblet & Co. A very respectable appearance Dick made, too, for he was a quick, sprightly young fellow, albeit somewhat over-fond of a mischievous joke; but this he would outgrow in time probably. Amy Seaton, sedate and modest as ever, with laughing Charlie for her beau, and several others, among whom we might mention Miss Martha ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... your Grand-duke? The scheme meets nothing to shock it In this smart letter, look, We found in Radetsky's pocket; Where his Highness in sprightly style Of the flower of his Tuscans wrote, "These heads be the hottest in file; Pray shoot them the quickest." Quote, ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... fresh and sprightly from want of work; and when the three were brought to the veranda of the farm which my father had leased for a time, Aunt Jenny—who had rejoined us, and was looking as if nothing had occurred—warned us to be careful, for the ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... lady. He is a free joker on serious subjects, but a good-natured man, and says sprightly things with no ill grace: the lady a little reserved, and haughty, though to-day was freer than usual; as ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... buckled a huge iron spur, with a rowel five or six inches in diameter. His horse, who stood quietly looking over his head, had a rude Mexican saddle, covered with a shaggy bearskin, and furnished with a pair of wooden stirrups of most preposterous size. The next man was a sprightly, active little fellow, about five feet and a quarter high, but very strong and compact. His face was swarthy as a Mexican's and covered with a close, curly black beard. An old greasy calico handkerchief was tied round his head, and his close buckskin dress was blackened and ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... sceptre-spikes of the chestnuts, Over the speckle of the wych-elms' green. She shouted; then stood still, hushed and abashed To hear her voice so shrill in that gay roar, And suddenly her eyelashes were dimmed, Caught in tense tears of spiritual joy; For there were daffodils which sprightly shook Ten thousand ruffling heads throughout the wood, And every flower of those delighting flowers Laughed, nodding to her, till she clapped her hands Crying 'O daffies, could you ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... of romantic and spirited adventures any bright boy could want than is to be found in this series of historical biography, it is difficult to imagine. This volume is written in a most sprightly manner; and the life of its hero, Fernan Magellan, with its rapid stride from the softness of a petted youth to the sturdy courage and persevering fortitude of manhood, makes a tale of marvellous ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... a rock at the side of the road to rest and waited for another rig or a foot passenger to come by. Before long he heard a sprightly whistle, and a barefooted boy, carrying a tin pail, and with a fish pole over his shoulder, appeared round a ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... touched every stair with his forehead, and kissed it; that man scratched his head all the way. The boys got on brilliantly, and were up and down again before the old lady had accomplished her half-dozen stairs. But most of the penitents came down, very sprightly and fresh, as having done a real good substantial deed which it would take a good deal of sin to counterbalance; and the old gentleman in the watch-box was down upon them with his canister while they were in this humour, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... number of guests had assembled. The company was not very presentable, but very sprightly. Liputin, vain and envious, only entertained visitors twice a year, but on those occasions he did it without stint. The most honoured of the invited guests, Stepan Trofimovitch, was prevented by illness from being ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... country, and had a wide circulation among the children throughout New England. Most of the pieces in "Only a Dandelion," first appeared, I think, in the "Youth's Companion," among the rest several in verse. They are written in a sprightly style, are full of bright fancies as well as sound feeling and excellent sense, and foretoken plainly the ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... directions—sometimes black, sometimes green, and sometimes, where bursting shell and brick-dust intermingled, blood-red. Beyond the ridge all-conquering British aeroplanes occupied the firmament, observing for "mother" and "granny" and signalling encouragement or reproof to these ponderous but sprightly relatives as their shells hit or ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... breakfast was ended, he perceived Marie rush to the window, and then hastily, and with a dainty coyness withdraw her head from the pane. Simultaneously he heard a sprightly tune whistled, as if by some glad, young heart that knew no care. Looking now, he saw a tall, well-formed young whiteman, a gun on his back, and a dog at his heels, walking along the little meadow-path ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... "The Crown-Prince manifests in this tender age [his seventh year] an uncommon capacity; nay we may say, something quite extraordinary (etwas ganz Ausserordentliches). He is a most alert and vivacious Prince; he has fine and sprightly manners; and shows a certain kindly sociality, and so affectionate a disposition that all things may be hoped of him. The French Lady who [under Roucoulles] has had charge of his learning hitherto, cannot speak of him without enthusiasm. 'C'est un esprit ange'lique (a little angel),' she ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... as though she had never beheld him in her life before; and yet in three minutes she saw how little real reason she had ever had for the illogical conclusion to which she had jumped. She searched for the sprightly figure she had worn in her mind's eye; his presence under any other name would still have been welcome enough now. But he was not there at all. In the patchy glare of the kerosene lamps, against the bunting which lined the corrugated walls of Gulland's new iron store, ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... who was about fourteen years of age. She was the daughter of the king's second wife, Queen Anne Boleyn. She had been educated a Protestant. She was not pretty, but was a very lively and sprightly child, altogether different in her cast of character and in her manners from ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the destruction of the third republic. It will not do to attribute these crises to the unstable character of the fiery Frenchman, nor can the difficulty be disposed of by saying that a French minister will create a crisis for the sake of a pleasing bon mot or a sprightly paradox. A crisis supposes something outside of, or above, or beyond the ordinary, but French ministerial crises have become so common that they are the laughingstock of the nations, and may be said to be almost the normal condition of the ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... point of national character, hold nearly the same relative place amongst the nations of Europe that the Athenians held amongst the States of Ancient Greece." And whilst it is admitted the French are quick, sprightly, vivacious, perhaps sometimes light even to frivolity, it must be conceded they have cultivated the natural and exact sciences with a patience, and perseverance, and success unsurpassed by any of the nations of Europe. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... disposition of my wife soon returned. She was young, blooming, fair and sprightly; and whatever pleasure I had in view, I never half enjoyed it unless she were a partaker of it. I have always been one of those mortals who think that women were formed to participate in all our rational pleasures and amusements; ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... his wish to be sprightly he had used words without thinking of their meanings. Suddenly he realized that "father" and "mother" really meant father and mother—people whom he had himself at home. He was very uncomfortable, and thought Rickie had been ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... To-morrow's falser than the former day, Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. Strange cozenage! none would live past years again; Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain. And, from the dregs of life, think to receive What the first sprightly running could not give. I'm tir'd with waiting for this chemic gold, Which fools us young ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... after a dinner party, in a merry mood, said, showing her a little box, "Here is vengeance on one's enemies: this box is small, but holds plenty of successions!" That she gave back the box into her hands, but soon changing from her sprightly mood, she cried, "Good heavens, what have I said? Tell nobody." That Lambert, clerk at the palace, told her he had brought the packets to Madame from Sainte-Croix; that Lachaussee often went to see her; and that she herself, not being paid ten pistoles which ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... so, indeed, than either had deemed it to be; while, secured behind the cushion or pillion, on which she rode,—for not a jot of saddle had she,—was a little bundle containing such worldly comforts as were necessary to one seriously bent upon a journey. She was mounted upon a sprightly pony, which she managed with more address and courage than would have been augured from her former timorous demeanour; and it was plain that she had put him to his mettle through the woods, with but little regard to ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... which breedeth displeasure in them whose delight it should promote, whose liking it should procure: it crosseth the nature and design of this way of speaking, which is to cement and ingratiate society, to render conversation pleasant and sprightly, for mutual satisfaction ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... Ferdinand Frog that made everybody smile. It may have been his amazingly wide mouth and his queer, bulging eyes, or perhaps it was his sprightly manner—for one never could tell when Mr. Frog would leap into the air, or turn a somersault backward. Indeed, some of his neighbors claimed that he himself didn't know what he was going to do ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... The One, in bloom of youth—a light-weight blade— The Other, vast, gigantic, as if made, Express, by Nature, for the hammering trade; [3] But aged, slow, with stiff limbs, tottering much, And lungs, that lack'd the bellows-mender's touch. Yet, sprightly to the scratch, both Buffers came, [4] While ribbers rung from each resounding frame, And divers digs, and many a ponderous pelt, Were on their broad bread-baskets heard and felt. [5] With roving aim, but aim that rarely miss'd Round lugs and ogles flew the frequent fist; [6] While showers of ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... Vernon while he himself and Mrs. Washington go to bed early, "soon after candle light." Lewis accepted the invitation all the more willingly because he found at the mansion Nelly Custis, a pretty and sprightly young lady with whom he promptly fell in love and married later. Nelly and her brother George had been adopted by Washington and brought up in the family. She was his particular pet. Like other mature men he found the boys of the younger generation somewhat ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... that many travellers in England need. All in an orderly and sprightly manner."—Professor ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... was lady of honour. She was of the house of Montmorency—a widow—handsome—sprightly; formed by nature to live at Court—apt for gallantry and intrigues; full of worldly cleverness, from living much in the world, with little cleverness of any other kind, nearly enough for any post and any business. M. de Louvois found her suited to his taste, and ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... style, well suited to the pretty classical affectations of the day. He delights in cupids, nymphs, and flowers. In two or three places, perhaps, he verges upon indelicacy, but conceals it so well among feathers and rose leaves, that we may half pardon it. Although always sprightly he is not often actually humorous, but we may quote the following advice to a husband ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... I have taken a whole minute to tell them, it is characteristic of most philologists. In less than a second, therefore, after the voice had ceased, I did turn round, and saw a pretty little woman—a sprightly brunette. ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... Gentlemen! My dears, I thought I should pass away! Then there came great, loud men's steps, and I heard Mr. Monk's voice—'This is one of our most interesting inmates, Bishop! Eighty-seven years old, and as sprightly as a girl. A most pious and exemplary person. Good morning, Miss Barry! ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... marched on day by day, across Greenbrier and Gauley rivers to Huntersville, a little but sprightly town hid in the very fastnesses of the mountains. The people live exceedingly well in these mountains. They had plenty of honey and buckwheat cakes, and they called buttermilk "sour-milk," and sour-milk weren't fit for pigs; they couldn't see how folks drank sour-milk. But ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... was, it roused in Mr. Winkle the highest degree of excitement and anxiety. The suspected prior attachment rankled in his heart. Could he be the object of it? Could it be for him that the fair Arabella had looked scornfully on the sprightly Bob Sawyer, or had he a successful rival? He determined to see her, cost what it might; but here an insurmountable objection presented itself, for whether the explanatory 'over that way,' and 'down there,' of Mr. Ben Allen, meant three miles off, or thirty, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... and plantains are mostly on the higher grounds. As soon as we had finished our dinner we returned towards the ship. I was much delighted in this walk with the number of children that I saw in every part of the country: they are very handsome and sprightly and full of antic tricks. They have many diversions that are common with the boys in England such as flying kites, cats cradle, swinging, dancing or jumping in a rope, walking upon ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... feeling. Nor was the world still but for this. From the bunk house came the mellow throbbing of a stringed instrument, the guitar of Sandy Sawtelle, star rider of the Arrowhead, temporarily withdrawn from a career of sprightly endeavour by a sprained ankle and solacing his retirement with music. He was playing "The Rosary"—very badly indeed, but one knew only too well what he meant. The two performers were distant enough to be no affront ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... manner towards his cousins, the Lady Pembrokes, who, since he had last seen them, had grown up from children into fine young women, there were nice differences; with all the privileged familiarity of relationship he met the sprightly frankness of Lady Mary, and by a degree of delicate tender respect put the retiring sensitive timidity of Lady Elizabeth at ease. None of these shades of manner were lost upon Caroline's discriminating observation. For some time after his ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... flowering time, endured longer. They had a fighting 'Border' there that lasted until the '45. The Gordons, of their own hand, have furnished a ballad literature as rich, if not quite so choice, as that of the Douglases themselves. Glenlogie and Geordie were of the 'gay Gordons,' and had the 'sprightly turn' that is held to be an inheritance of the race. Edom o' Gordon—Adam of Auchindoun—did his ruthless work in 1571. It was in one of their interminable quarrels, begun on the farther side of ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... full of sprightly dialogue, can be already detected something of the art of the conteur which will appear in Chaucer, and something almost of the art of the novelist, destined five hundred years later to reach such a high development in England. The curiosity of the Celt, reawakened by the Norman, is perpetuated ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... I did miss My Lady, perched upon the stoic mule while like an Arab chief I convoyed her. The steady miles, I admitted, were going to be as disappointing as tepid water, when not aerated by her counsel and piquant allusions, by her sprightly readiness and the essential elements of her blue eyes, her facile lips, and that bright hair which no dust ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... beauty is not easily described otherwise than by saying she had the finest complexion, most beautiful hair, and prettiest person that was ever seen, with a sprightly and fine air, a pretty mouth, and remarkably fine teeth, and excess of bloom in ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... all was joy and festivity. When the little Duc d'Angouleme, now a sprightly boy of six years old, was taken into the nursery to see, or, in the court language, to pay his homage to, the heir to the throne, he said to his father, as he left the room, "Papa, how little my cousin is!" "The day will come, my boy," replied the count, "when you will find him ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... we were landed in a waiting-room at Pittsburg. I had now under my charge a young and sprightly Dutch widow with her children; these I was to watch over providentially for a certain distance farther on the way; but as I found she was furnished with a basket of eatables, I left her in the waiting-room to seek a dinner ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... considerable talk, in which they did not get much to further their purpose, they took their leave. The account of this interview, given by Putnam and Cheever, indicates that Martha Corey was a sensible, enlightened, and sprightly woman, perfectly free from the delusion of the day, courteous in her manners and bearing, and a ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... I changed from grave to gay. My mood during these periods of fascination was as variable as the different heroines I admired. Now I would imitate the pensiveness of Amanda, and go about with streaming tresses, and a softly modulated tone of voice—then I would read of some sprightly heroine who changed all by her vivacity and piquant sayings, and immediately commence springing down three stairs at a time, teazing all the children, and making some reply to everything that was said, which sometimes passed for wit but oftener for ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... walked up the rocky path leading to the house, I must confess I felt anything but sprightly. I felt that Crusoe life, after all, was not all caviare. I was very depressed, and must admit a few tears, as the whole force of what I had undertaken presented itself vividly to my mind. What if I met with an ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... him to her. She said pretty things—for she was Miss Chudleigh. He said pretty things—for he was Mr. Cibber; and all the company, men and women, seemed to think they had an interest in what was said, and were half as well pleased as if they had said the sprightly things themselves; and mighty well contented were they to be secondhand repeaters of the pretty things. But once I faced the laureate squatted upon one of the benches, with a face more wrinkled than ordinary ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... spring! Sunshine; the Thames agleam with silver ripples, singing as it flows; red sails! Joyous London that has emerged from fogs and basks beneath blue skies! Thoroughfares that give forth a glad hum; wheels singing, too; whips that crack in sprightly arpeggios. On the streets, people, not shadows, who walk with a swing; who really seem to breath and not slink uncannily by! Eyes that regard you with human expression; faces that seem capable of emotion; ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... the slackened rein, the steeds, Chafing with eager rivalry, career With emulative fleetness o'er the plain; Their necks outstretched, their waving plumes, that late Fluttered above their brows, are motionless[10]; Their sprightly ears, but now erect, bent low; Themselves unsullied by the circling dust, That vainly ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... to recognize their bird neighbours, to love them for their beauty, and sweet songs, and their sprightly ways. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... undoubtedly a drawback to Tom's pleasure. How could he be natural with a person whom he disliked as much as he did Furbush and who he knew disliked him? Besides, he did not feel like being sprightly and picnicky with Nancy beside him. Instead, he felt homesick, or at least that is the way it seemed to him. Still, how could it be genuine homesickness when the object of his yearning was beside him? Nevertheless, there ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... height of blood his shining sides; His head now freed, he tosses to the skies; His mane dishevell'd o'er his shoulders flies; He snuffs the females in the distant plain, And springs, exulting, to his fields again. With equal triumph, sprightly, bold, and gay, In arms refulgent as the god of day, The son of Priam, glorying in his might, Rush'd forth with Hector ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... motionless figure served as a strong relief to his face, which caught the bright light of the blazing fire. The face was not unlike that of a satyr; there was the same slightly protruding forehead, full, in this case, of prominences, all more or less denoting character; the same turned-up nose, with a sprightly cleavage at the tip; the same high cheek-bones. The lines of the mouth were crooked; the lips, thick and red. The chin turned sharply upwards. There was an alert, animated look in the brown eyes, to which ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... had a light luncheon ready before Julie returned. She came down the trail sprightly, with one hand holding something behind her, and singing ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... sprightly little scenes with unspeakable interest until the arrival of Mr. SCHENCK, and then followed that popular benefactor into his private office with the air of a man who had gained a heightened admiration for ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... to have acquired the meaning of its opposite malapert, though the older sense of brisk, sprightly, survives in dialect— ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... maid's heart by going at her as solemn as a funeral,' pursued the old woman. 'If you'd ha' begun sprightly with the gell, you might ha' had a chance with her. "La!" says you, "what a pretty frock you're a-wearing to-day;" or "How nice you do do up your hair for ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... triumphantly—whose dimpled cheeks flushed scarlet for almost any cause, some said for very coquetry. Then there were three little girls called Wermant, daughters of an agent de change—a spray of May roses, exactly alike in features, manners, and dress, sprightly and charming as little girls could be. A little pompon rose was tiny Dorothee d'Avrigny, to whom the pet name Dolly was appropriate, for never had any doll's waxen face been more lovely than her little round one, with its mouth shaped like a little heart—a mouth smaller than ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... when the ladies arrived. The music consisted of an instrument similar to a flageolet, (tabla) a kettle-drum, and a sort of castanets of steel, an erbeb, or fiddle with two strings, played with a semicircular bow. The tunes 141 were gay and sprightly, and the damsels tripped along on the light fantastic toe in a very superior and elegant style. They danced without men; advancing gently at first, apparently without taking the foot off the ground, but gradually advancing; after which they performed some steps ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... delightful thing, a man. He carried a cane, and was very particular about his hat and necktie and his boots, which generally were tan. And he had the faintest possible moustache, that he caressed with great frequency; and that privately Aldith thought adorable. Aldith's pert, sprightly manner pleased him, and in a very short time they had got to the period of passing notes into each other's hands and sighing sentimentally. Not that the notes contained much harm, they were generally of rather a ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... drove along the pike, Harkless's three companions kept up a conversation sprightly beyond the mere exhilaration of the victorious; but John sat almost silent, and, in spite of their liveliness, the others eyed him a little anxiously now and then, knowing that he had been living on excitement through ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... shame to our nation and age that our women are so impotent and sickly. We believe the best medicine for them would be one that would set them all into a hearty laugh, taken once an hour through the day. They need more sprightly activity, more exhilaration of mind and body, more sunshine and bird-song, more exuberant freshness of life and Happiness. Every gloomy thought is a tax on health. Every desponding hour extracts a year's vitality from the system. A melancholy ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... Prince Escalus, and Romeo's friend. An airy, sprightly, elegant young nobleman, so full of wit and fancy that Dryden says Shakespeare was obliged to kill him in the third act, lest the poet himself should have been killed by Mercutio.—Shakespeare, Romeo ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... her thoughts have received. We found her in her little calm retreat, at Hampstead, surrounded by marks of love and reverence from distinguished and excellent friends. Near her was the sister, older than herself, yet still sprightly and full of active kindness, whose character and their mutual relations she has, in one of her last poems, indicated with such a happy mixture of sagacity, humor, and tender pathos, and with so absolute ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... she had never thanked Peter for the brave part which he had played, and, indeed, had left him to walk home with Betty, a journey that, as she gathered from her sprightly cousin's talk while she undressed her, neither of them had much enjoyed. For Betty, be it said here, was angry with Peter, who, it seemed, once had told her that she was a handsome, silly fool, who thought too much of men and too little of her business. Well, since after the day's work ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... that Buff escaped many a "bawling out" because the officers respected the father's long years of faithful service and did not want to humiliate him. He knew that his boy flew high occasionally, but that was because he was "jess nachally sprightly and full o' devilment." No one could deny that Private Wilson was one of the finest animals, physically, that ever wore the uniform; or that he had gained a wide reputation among his comrades and the Filipinos on account of his terrible abilities in a hand-to-hand ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... cent paper, and was started at the time of the sale of the Sun to Mr. Dana and his associates, with the hope of securing the patronage of the working classes. Its managing editor is Mr. Joseph Howard. It is a sprightly paper, intensely Democratic in tone, and is said ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... some she'd fetch 'em home something real pritty, and so did. An' then they come home t'other way, round the Horn, an' she done so well, an' was such a sight o' company, the other child'n was jealous, an' she promised she'd go a v'y'ge long o' each on 'em. She was as sprightly a person as ever I see; an' could speak ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... length is Torture: since the Torch is out, Lye downe and stray no farther. Now all labour Marres what it does: yea, very force entangles It selfe with strength: Seale then and all is done. Eros? I come my Queene. Eros? Stay for me, Where Soules do couch on Flowers, wee'l hand in hand, And with our sprightly Port make the Ghostes gaze: Dido, and her Aeneas shall want Troopes, And all the haunt be ours. Come Eros, Eros. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... often reprove her, when she found her too grave or melancholy; give her sprightly lectures about good-humor and rational mirth; and not unfrequently fall a-crying herself, to the great discredit of her lecture. Those tears endeared her the ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... I will be as Spartan as I can," agreed Tricotrin. "Now I have lost my place in the masterpiece. Ah, here we are! 'I feel she brings bad tidings—she wears a disastrous mien.' It is sprightly dialogue! If the hundred and fifty francs were not essential to keep a roof over my head, I would send the Editor a challenge for offering me ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... Park, having purchased a hardy and spirited horse and two asses, arranged to accompany it. He obtained also the services of Johnson, a negro who spoke both English and Mandingo. Dr Laidley also provided him with a negro boy named Demba, a sprightly youth who spoke, besides Mandingo, the language of a large tribe in the interior. His baggage consisted only of a small stock of provisions, beads, amber and tobacco, for the purchase of food on the road; a few changes of linen, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... what was the matter with my old world. For some time I had had the queerest sensations imaginable. I was accustomed to being out of doors a great deal, and I first began to notice that I could walk and run more easily than before. I was becoming rather sprightly for one who was so soon to pass off this deserted stage. Then everything I took up seemed to be growing marvelously light, and I began to have a feeling that I must hold on to all my movable possessions, to keep them from getting away. After this unaccountable ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... upon her regard. She was the child of wealth, and fashion spoke of her taste and elegance. She was very lovely, and the voice of flattery mingled with the accents of honest praise. She was agreeable in manners, sprightly in conversation, and was courted and caressed. She heard with more complacency, reports from the gay circles she had once frequented, and noted with more interest the ever-shifting pageantry of folly. Then she lessened her charities, furnished her wardrobe more lavishly, and was less ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... the elf started on a run, whooping and hallooing. Laura could do nothing else than follow him, but she found it difficult, he was so small and sprightly. Nimbly he leaped over the rocks, turning occasionally to make a queer grimace at poor Laura's efforts to keep pace with him. When it pleased him, he stopped and waited for ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... is vivacious and sprightly. He is famous. He has already had an affair with Finfin, the fille de chambre, and poor Finfin is desolate. He is noble. She knows he is the son of Madame la Baronne Couturiere. She ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... occasion to own a Rhyming Dictionary), that the number of English words consonant with my name is exceedingly small; but leave the difficulty to the ingenious Dr. Alexander H. Japp, LL.D., F.R.S.E., who has lately been at the pains to compose and put into private circulation a sprightly lampoon upon me. As it is not my intention to reply with a set of verses upon Dr. Japp, it seems superfluous to inquire if his name should be pronounced as it ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Hymeneals as though they were even more than ordinarily joyful and happy in their promise. To Lizzie he was almost affectionate, and Mrs. Carbuncle he flattered to the top of her bent. The power of the man in being sprightly under such a load of trouble as oppressed the household, was wonderful. He had to do with three women who were worldly, hard, and given entirely to evil things. Even as regarded the bride, who felt the horror of her position, so much must be in ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... large of frame and endowed with great force and strength, the women in Montalluyah scarcely ever exceed the middle size. They are beautiful, and thoroughly feminine in form and feature, while in disposition they are sprightly, ingenuous, and truthful. Their carriage and movement are marked by elegance and grace, their voice is of melodious softness, and they are altogether distinguished by a peculiar charm ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... might be given to some grave and elderly divine, rather than to so young a man 'because (added the bishop) the situation of Derry is in the midst of Presbyterians, and I should be glad of a clergyman, who might be of assistance to me. I have no objection to Mr. Swift. I know him to be a sprightly ingenious young man; but instead of residing, I dare say he will be eternally flying backwards and forwards to London; and therefore I entreat that he may be provided ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... speaker. While the subject may be weighty, and the language may be necessarily of the literary or scientific sort, the style of speaking should be colloquial. It ought to bring the hearer pretty near to the speaker. If the subject and language are light, the speaking will be sprightly and comparatively swift. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... Elliot] was very kind to me even then, and I took to her very much. I used to admire her bright eyes and her beautiful and very abundant dark hair, which was always exceedingly glossy, and her lovely throat, which was the whitest possible—also her sprightly ways, for she was ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... skies, where gentler manners reign, We turn, where France displays her bright domain. Thou sprightly land of mirth and social ease, Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please, How often have I led thy sportive choir With tuneless pipe, along the sliding Loire? No vernal bloom their torpid rocks display, But Winter lingering chills the lap of May; No zephyr fondly sooths the ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... must have been a good contrast just then. I, leaning quietly on my crutch-stick, with something of a care-worn, patient air; he, having hold of my arm, and bowing in every direction with the most elastic politeness, and an expression of face whose sprightly cheerfulness and good-humour knew no bounds. The difference between us must have been more striking yet, as we advanced towards the table, and the amiable gentleman, adapting his jocund step to my poor tread, ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... friends, or his parents alone. He had never, therefore, been inoculated against the germs of love by small doses of the poison. And now in the dark his temperature was mounting fast. He lay awake, featuring Fleur—as they called it—recalling her words, especially that "Au revoir!" so soft and sprightly. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... But why this gloom on that angelic face? Why not as sprightly as you us'd to be? Surely you'll not conceal the cause from me, Whose wishes for you are sincere ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... The sprightly company, which had taken for its motto "Sic juvat transcendere montes," looked and worshiped. There was a moment of silent devotion, broken by one of the gentlemen demanding if 't were not time for dinner; another remarked that they might go much farther and fare much worse, in respect ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... its being founded in Truth and Nature, and built upon Experience, will be a lasting Recommendation to the Discerning and Judicious; while the agreeable Variety of Occurrences and Characters, in which it abounds, will not fail to engage the Attention of the gay and more sprightly Readers. ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... tell, Fanny had borne it very well, until young Dr. Bellamy showed signs of desertion. Then the spirit of resistance was roused, and she watched her lover narrowly, gnashing her teeth sometimes when she saw his ill-concealed admiration for her sprightly little cousin, who could say and do with perfect impunity so many things which in another would have been improper to the last degree. She was a tolerably correct reader of human nature, and, from the moment she witnessed ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... drums aft, and a young boy dancing in the bow and keeping time with a rifle. Except for her paleness, which was like marble, and the bloody marks of the sinnet on her pretty wrists, you wouldn't have taken her for much different than usual; and she skipped up the ladder as sprightly as you please, and made a bee line for Elijah Coe like a schoolgirl running to her pa for ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... resemblance between the two stories should have been got rid of, as, up to the Ball Scene, except for the absence of the Pumpkin and the Mice, it is difficult to distinguish between the two fairy tales. But, when last I saw Cinderella, wasn't ROSINA VOKES the sprightly heroine, and her brother with the wonderful legs the Baron? I think so: but I will not be too much of a laudator temporis acti, and will be thankful that one of the youthful Commissioners thoroughly enjoyed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various |
